


A Long Drag

by whatsanapocalae



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: A little angst, Alcohol, Amnesia, Birthday Presents, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Food, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lots of kissing, M/M, Malnutrition, Men Crying, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 02:35:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17112800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsanapocalae/pseuds/whatsanapocalae
Summary: Happy Birthday Stefano! It's the first one he's had since escaping STEM (based on the season at the endgame I think it took place in late Spring?)





	A Long Drag

At one point he had learned to be a hard sleeper, to not hear the men in the other bunks cry out as pain and nightmares and panic overtook them. Now though, he had been reborn, a second time, and he was on a third life, and in this one pain was kissed away, nightmares were dealt with with cuddling and talking, and panic attacks were never kept private. He had learned, in this life, to wake easily, when those he now shared his life with needed him.

He could have kicked himself for not waking with Sebastian, though when he did stir the sounds from the other side of the bed had no remnants of the horror they'd experienced together. Sebastian didn't seem to be plagued by anything worse than a phone call, even though it was bordering on 3am. Stefano listened as best he could but all he could tell about the person on the other side was that she was a woman and he wondered for a moment if he was supposed to be jealous about that. 

“You're sure about that? I know you checked, but I just want to be certain,” Sebastian whispered. He was sitting up, turned away from Stefano and the moon made his shoulders seem almost pale. “Thanks. Yeah. And it's all set up? Oh shit, what? But you got it? Thank God. I just want this to be special, you know? Thank you. No, really. I couldn't do it without you. You're a lifesaver, you always have been, even if I didn't always get it. I know. No, I haven't been drinking. Thank you, I'll tell you all about it.” 

He hung up the phone and Stefano closed his eye, pretending he'd been asleep all the while. Of course, he almost gave himself away when Sebastian wrapped an arm around him and cuddled up close.

\---

Lily wasn't much of an actress by any stripe but she had still landed a spot in the school play. The part was minor, she was going to be a mouse, but she still wasn't quite memorizing her lines. Luckily she had a friend in the play and Sebastian had okayed her spending the night, so they could rehearse, even though it was a school night. 

She was wearing the moose ears from her costume and had drawn on whiskers with some eyeliner she had gotten somewhere and she talked a mile a minute while Stefano inched the family car through the snow. It wasn't far but he wasn't used to driving in the snow or, really, much at all. Sebastian was, apparently, too busy to take her, though Stefano didn't know what with. 

He knew that Sebastian was hiding something from him and it made him antsy and nervous. He didn't like being lied to and he didn't like being manipulated and he was going to have a talk with Sebastian as soon as he got home, if he survived. 

Ava only lived a few precarious blocks away, luckily and Stefano helped Lily bring her things to the door. He received a few odd looks from Ava's mother, especially after he introduced himself, but he tried to ignore it, take it as her just being surprised he wasn't Sebastian. Lily still demanded a hug from him though, before she went inside.

“You have a good night, okay?” Lily said as the snow soaked through the knee of Stefano's slacks. “Dad worked hard on it.” 

He pulled back, his eyebrow raised, but Lily just smiled, took her backpack, and darted inside.

The anger that had started to warm him was shifted as he got back to the car and drove back home, turning instead into curiosity. Perhaps Sebastian wasn’t trying to trick him or lie to him or anything like that, though he’d had so many bad experiences with that he wouldn’t be surprised if Sebastian was just like the rest. He didn’t think so though, he had been brutally honest with Stefano about everything else, even if it was something that could harm him in the long run. He still had a hard time trusting people but he felt safe with Sebastian, safer than he had in a long time. 

He sat in the car for a few moments before he climbed into the cold and over to the door. He didn’t need to knock, over the past few months this place had become his home. He felt like he was supposed to though, if Sebastian was planning something. He shuddered and went inside. 

“I’m home!” Stefano called out, pulling off his puff jacket and hanging it in the hall closet. “Sebastian?”

“I’m upstairs!” Sebastian responded and Stefano went to the stairs, dread starting to build in him. He didn’t like all this sneaking around, he didn’t know what Sebastian was planning, what he was doing, but for some reason, for many reasons, Stefano could only think that whatever Sebastian was up to would be a problem. He thought back to the week before, that strange phone call that he’d never asked about. That had been the start of all this. 

He went up the stairs slowly, trying to formulate what he was going to say. He could pretend that he hadn’t noticed anything, that Lily hadn’t said anything, and just go along as if he didn’t know there was anything the matter. He didn’t want to do that, he wanted to nip this in the bud. There was an iceburg in his chest. 

He went to their bedroom. Again, he felt like he should knock. There was that 4am isolation, that feeling where the house is bigger than remembered, when the floorboards creaked more loudly, that felt of a terrible nostalgia he didn’t remember the cause of. It made the iceburg freeze the muscles around it. 

He opened the door and sighed, his shoulders slumping. The nerves weren’t gone but they changed, molded themselves around Sebastian’s frame far better than the suit did. Because Sebastian didn’t look intimidating, he didn’t look like someone who was guilty about something. There was a look about him that Stefano couldn’t place, it wasn’t an emotion that he had felt himself. 

But he was wearing a suit. Stefano had never seen Sebastian in a suit before. He was fixing his tie in front of Stefano’s mirror, a thin red striped one, and he looked over his reflections shoulder at Stefano. “So, how do I look?”

Stefano leaned against the doorframe. Sebastian looked different, cleaned up, handsome. His hair was swept back and there was the sheen of gel in it to keep it in place. He hadn’t shaved but he’d trimmed his beard so that there was a actual shape to it and Stefano could see the shape of his jaw beneath it. His smile was nervous but excited. His suit was too big in the waist and too short in the arms but Stefano was sure that he’d bought it off of a rack instead of going to an actual tailor. 

“You look like you’re going somewhere important.” Stefano mused. “And you look exquisite, in your way.”

“In my way? What’s that supposed to mean?” He had an eyebrow raised and his smile didn’t falter so Stefano was sure that he hadn’t taken it as an offence. 

“You always look exquisite but now you look like you’ve got an idea of what you want to do with yourself.” Cryptic, he knew from Sebastian’s micro expressions, but it was true and he knew Sebastian didn’t like it when he compared him to art. Sebastian had bad memories from their first few interactions as well. 

“You should get dressed,” Sebastian gestured at the bed where Stefano’s suit had been carefully laid out. It was odd for Sebastian to pick out his clothes for him but, this time, he had guessed at a good combination. A deep maroon jacket with a buttery yellow shirt and black slacks. “We don’t want to be late.”

“We?” Stefano asked, stepping into the bedroom proper, pulling his scarf away from his neck and immediately feeling nude without it, vulnerable. The nerves were still there, making the house feel like a place he shouldn’t be so vulnerable. 

“Well, yeah,” Sebastian left the mirror to go to Stefano’s side, to leave a kiss on his cheek. “I need someone to protect me. Look at me, if I went out like this I’d be hit on in minutes!”

Stefano laughed. He could hear the tension in his voice. From Sebastian’s expression, he could hear it too. “So, that’s why you kept me.”

“One of the many reasons,” Sebastian gave his cheek another kiss. “You need a moment?”

Stefano nodded. Sebastian was learning to read him faster than he was Sebastian. He could see how uncomfortable Stefano was right then. He slipped out of his clothes quickly, trading his slacks and his shirt for the ones that Sebastian had provided him. He didn’t take off his gloves. He was expecting something to jump out at him at any moment. He paired the jacket with a brighter crimson scarf and, as a last thought, he took the knife out of his bedside drawer, slipping it into the inner pocket of the jacket. He doubted he would need it but it made him feel safer, all the same. 

When he made it back downstairs Sebastian was leaning against the back of the couch, texting someone absent-mindedly. He was wearing his black trench coat over his suit and it made him look far more dashing, hiding how the suit didn’t fit him. He held Stefano’s peacoat in his free hand and, when he saw him he smiled and handed it over. 

“You look gorgeous.”

“I always look gorgeous.” 

“That’s true but I don’t think I say it enough. You ready to go?” 

“I don’t even know where we’re going.”

Sebastian cupped his cheek, looking him in the eyes. “Don’t you worry about it. I’m taking you someplace nice, you’ll see.”

He wanted to relax, he wanted to calm down, he wanted the ice in his chest and in his heart to thaw. He wanted Sebastian to tell him what was going on.

He followed him back out to the car in silence. 

The conversation was light on the drive, Sebastian keeping the topic on anything other than what they were doing as Stefano’s fingers drummed on his thigh, as his mouth went more and more dry, as the urge for him to just ask what Sebastian was up to grew to dizzying heights. 

He felt like he was going to be punished for something. He felt like this was punishment. That terrible unplaceable nostalgia was back in full force. 

They were driving into the heart of the city and the trees were done up in white lights and the people were done up in their holiday gear, ugly sweaters and big bags as they rushed with last minute purchases. Stefano tried to keep his attention on them and not on the gnawing wrongness inside of him. He didn’t remember Christmas very well, the concept he knew, of course, but he couldn’t remember any specific events. He was sure he’d celebrated it as a child. 

‘La Raffinatezza’ was what the rustic sign wrapped in grape vines said, hanging low over the door of a modest building shoved between two newer skyscrapers. Sebastian parked in front of it and put a finger up to Stefano, signalling for him to stay where he was. Stefano’s eyebrows and heart knotted, but he did what he was told, wondering why Sebastian was doing this to him. 

Sebastian opened his door for him though and held out his hand, leading Stefano out of the car. He didn’t let go of Stefano’s hand either, when he led him to the building. 

When the door opened Stefano was first hit with the heat of the building and then the smell. That nostalgia grew but it didn’t come with the guilty sensation or the coldness of before. It smelled like food, yes, garlic primarily, but it smelled of home. Not of his home with Sebastian and definitely not his home before, but his first home. It smelled like Florence. 

“What are you doing?” Stefano asked, unable to stop a small smile from forming. 

“Just you wait,” Sebastian led him inside and over to the mustachioed host. A thrill went up Stefano’s spine when Sebastian agreed to having an reservation but said Valentini instead of Castellanos. It shouldn’t have meant anything, but it did, it felt like something huge and it was a hot poker sitting in that iceburg, melting it out of his throat. 

They were led to their seats and Sebastian hadn’t let go of his hand yet. Normally Stefano would have torn himself away, he didn’t like the public’s eye on him, not when he had other things to show them, but he had allowed it so far and it felt good to have Sebastian there with him. They were given menus and a wine list and some time. 

“I can’t understand what anyone is saying,” Sebastian sighed after reading over the menu for a few minutes, his eyebrows furrowing as he sounded out the names of some of the dishes. “Is this what it’s like for you all the time?” 

Stefano cocked his head. There weren’t too many other people in the restaurant, it was too nice for the masses to pop in during their Christmas shopping and those who were there were dressed as nicely as the pair of them. It was probably a hot spot for engagements. He hadn’t even noticed that no one around them was speaking English. Which meant they weren’t in a normal Italian restaurant. They were in a real Italian restaurant. 

“I’m a bit more used to it than you are, I suppose.” Stefano nodded. “Do you need help?”

“Please, I was just going to get lasagna because I know how to say it.”

Stefano laughed and took over. When their waiter came by he ordered for both of them as well as a bottle of wine and he was terribly aware that Sebastian was sitting there and watching him with a dopey grin on his face all the while. Sebastian couldn’t understand what Stefano was saying and it was all benign, pointless things, but the way he was looking at him was the same way that he looked at Lily when she was playing and not paying any attention to him. Stefano felt the ice melt further. 

“So, when are you going to tell me what you’re up to?” Stefano asked once they were alone once more. 

“I can’t just take you out, can I?” Sebastian chuckled. 

“No, you can’t, not when you’re hiding things from me,” Stefano retorted. He didn’t want to bring that part up but it had been so hard not to ignore. 

Sebastian blushed and took a drink of his water. “That obvious huh?”

“You’ve never been able to sneak around me, try as you might.” 

“Maybe I sneak around you all the time but you don’t notice.”

“You tend to announce your presence by knocking them over when you try.”

Sebastian got serious then, his entire demeanor shifting. “Shit, you really don’t know what today is, do you?”

Stefano knitted his fingers in front of him. “Obviously not, it’s not some strange before Christmas holiday, is it?” 

Sebastian reached out to take his hand once more but Stefano pulled away as the waiter returned with the white wine that he’d ordered and poured them both a glass. Stefano waited until he was gone, the bottle left behind, before reaching over and stealing Sebastian’s glass. 

“Thanks.”

Stefano didn’t respond, just drained the glass faster than he had any need to. His nerves were on high alert and whatever Sebastian was up to, it was important.

“It’s December 22nd.” 

“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” Stefano explained. 

“Stefano,” Sebastian reached across then, palm raised for Stefano to put his own hand into it. He wa reluctant, but he took the offered gesture. “Shit, I was worried this might happen. It’s your Birthday.”

“My what?” Stefano asked, almost withdrawing, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. 

“You don’t remember, do you? Mobius took even that away from you.”

The ice solidified and his pulse was racing, his mind going faster than that. How could he have forgotten that? And on top of that, how had he not realized that he’d forgotten? He tried to remember events, anything from his childhood that matched with this idea. Sometimes, when he tried hard enough, he could remember something, feelings, faces, events, nothing really important. More often than not he just got headaches from the attempt or odd pains that he couldn’t explain, like the cold in his throat. 

He shook his head. “How did you find out?”

“I had Juli look through your file. She was the one that found this place too. Are you alright?”

Stefano didn’t know. He should have been used to this, the not knowing, and he should have been grateful that Sebastian had given him a piece of his history, had found something, and was celebrating it. 

“I. I suppose? I don’t know,” Stefano admitted. “I just need a few moments to think.”

“You need me to go?” 

Stefano shook his head. He wanted Sebastian there. 

A few more minutes and their food arrived. Sebastian ate slowly, savoring the flavors, while Stefano stared at his own order wondering if it too was going to betray his mind, overturn something he thought was gone. He couldn’t remember celebrating a Birthday. He couldn’t remember his parents faces, nor their names. He remembered there was someone else, that there were nights of hold one another, that there was fear and pain and that there had been something wrong but he didn’t remember what it was. There were happy moments too but they were like warm rays of sunlight through the window. He couldn’t make anything solid. 

Slowly, he started to eat, and he was glad to have no more revelations because of it. It was delicious and that helped to take his mind off of what he’d lost. 

He was half way through his food when he felt he couldn’t eat any more. The food was authentic, was wonderful but the portions were Americanized. Sebastian was able to get through all of his. Stefano had also had more than half the bottle of wine when he went ahead and asked another question. 

“I know how foolish this sounds, and I want you to know that I feel no joy in asking it, but I think it’s important for me to know,” Stefano kept his eye down, not knowing where to focus. He felt like a fool for not knowing this. He had ideas but none of them were concrete. He bit his lip before asking. “How old am I?” 

Sebastian stared at Stefano’s wine glass. Stefano drained it once more. He was normally much better at enjoying wine like this, but he’d forgotten about Sebastian’s problems with alcohol, and there were so many edges cutting him up inside that he needed some form of relief. 

“You’re just turning 33.” Sebastian informed him. 

Stefano gulped. “That’s quite the difference, isn’t it?” 

Sebastian nodded. “I don’t mind it, do you?” 

Stefano looked over Sebastian’s face, over his life so far. “I think, if I’d met you at any other age, you wouldn’t half as interesting as you are now.”

“That’s a bit of an understatement,” Sebastian chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. “You met me at one of the worst times of my life.”

“I can’t say the same, unfortunately,” Stefano shrugged, “But that is neither here nor there, as I don’t remember much of what happened before Union aside from what shaped and inspired my work within it. I do believe those instances were my lows and that thing that I had become inside, my high, before I met you.”

“You want me to get you copy of that file?”

He hesitated because he liked his life the way that it was now and he didn’t know if knowledge of his past would change that or, if there was something in there that would hurt him. He was sure that there was, from the nightmares that were all shadows and confusion, brought from something other than STEM, and from that ache in his throat. 

He nodded, “Yes, I think I would.” 

He didn’t have to read it. Just having it, being able to get some of that information, would be enough. 

“I’m sorry, I wanted tonight to be really special, but I think I’ve fucked it up, huh?” Sebastian admitted. 

“No,” Stefano rested his other hand on top of Sebastian’s and he looked at him sternly, trying to get the words through to him, “No, you had an amazing plan and the food was devine and I couldn’t have asked for anything more. It just took me off guard and, the way you went about it, I felt like there was something you were hiding from me.”

“It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“I thought I had done something wrong, because you wouldn’t tell me everything. I don’t know what that means.”

Sebastian leaned forward and pressed a small kiss to Stefano’s lips before drawing away before anyone could see. Sebastian was unabashed about their relationship, he would flaunt it if he could, but that always made Stefano feel terribly unsafe. He had learned to be quieter about it. He had done so much to wrap his life around Stefano’s needs. 

“If you ever do something wrong, I’m going to tell you, alright? I hate that passive aggressive bullshit. You’ll know exactly how I’m feeling,” Sebastian promised. 

Stefano felt himself melt then, the pressure of wondering fading away. Sebastian had never lied to him, he wouldn’t either. He was a good man. 

“I don’t know how I ever got an opportunity like this. To find a man like you, who cares about me the way that you do. I don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve it.”

“I don’t believe in deserving things,” Sebastian explained, “But I believe in going after what you want and that’s something we’ve both done to get where we are, together.” Sebastian glanced down at Stefano’s plate. “There are other places we should go together. You need a box?”

Stefano nodded. “What are you thinking?”

“Nowhere special, just home.” Sebastian shrugged. 

“You have another surprise planned.”

“I do, and I’m hoping it gets a better reaction.”

\--- 

The trip back home was lighter, both from how tipsy Stefano realized he was upon standing up and just the lack of stress now that they both knew what was going on. Stefano kept holding Sebastian’s hand, fingers laced on the gear shaft as they went through the snow. Before he’d been dreading the unknown, now he was excited for it. 

They half raced to the door and through it, once Sebastian had figured out how to get his keys situated with one hand since Stefano wasn’t in the mood to release him. 

They tossed off their coats when inside, as well as their shoes, and Stefano’s hands were on Sebastian again, this time on his tie, pulling him down for a kiss before loosening it enough to get to his shirt buttons underneath. 

“Woah woah woah!” Sebastian cackled against his lips, allowing himself to be maneuvered, pressed against a wall with Stefano’s knee pressed between his legs. “You seem eager to unwrap your gift, but I’m not it!”

“Are you sure about that?” Stefano asked, biting Sebastian’s lip. 

Sebastian moaned and ground down on Stefano’s leg before catching himself and ducking out of his hold, leaving Stefano’s holding his tie as he climbed over Stefano’s leg. “Yeah, yeah, come on!”

Stefano laughed as he followed Sebastian to the dining room, where there was a large gift on the table. Sebastian set him down into the chair before it, his hands running down the sleeves of Stefano’s jacket. “Cake,” he said, simply, before leaving him to pull two large slices of tiramisu from the fridge, where they’d been hidden in Sebastian’s lunch bag. 

He sat beside Stefano, pulling his chair a bit closer. “Lily got you something too, but she wanted to give it to you herself,” Sebastian explained. “So just one for now.”

Stefano eyed it. It was shaped like a record player, just more of a box. Sebastian was waiting for him, impatient. Stefano swallowed. 

He started to work on the paper, taking it off slowly and carefully, when Sebastian rolled his eyes and groaned. “Just tear it!” 

“FIne, fine!” Stefano chuckled, “I’ll bend to your barbaric depravity!” But he did take the paper and tear it, revealing a matte finished book cover the color of blood. In the center of the cover was a picture of an old Varitas camera, one that Stefano remembered the feel of in his hands, against his skin, from a long time ago. Above it, in golden letters were the words ‘Il Nato due Volte - Stefano Valentini’.

He traced the cover with his hand, looking from it over at Sebastian. “This is…”

“Yeah, it’s yours,” Sebastian kissed his cheek. “It was a bitch to find too.” 

Stefano opened the book, finding it filled with photographs, most of which he didn’t remember taking, but all of them his. They all had explanations beside them, what the photograph meant to him and to the world. Most of them were nudes and flowers and terribly staged. He’d improved so much since then. 

“Lily can’t look at this,” Stefano decided, his heart buzzing, another feeling that he didn’t have a name for taking over him. It felt like all of him was about to vibrate out of his skin. It felt felt good, wonderful. He couldn’t stop smiling, even as he realized that he was crying. He didn’t know if he’d ever felt so much in one go. 

“Page 94,” Sebastian instructed, wiping the tears from Stefano’s cheeks so they wouldn’t drip onto the paper. 

Stefano flipped to it and there it was, taking up the entire page, his masterpiece, the photo that changed it all. Kyle Marks, in all of his glory, flames and shrapnel piercing him, an explosion of blood and life, a bouquet of everything he had been. Tucked between the pages was a note in Sebastian’s hand. 

‘Look how far we’ve come.’

He turned from the book and grabbed Sebastian by the jaw, his hands framing Sebastian’s face, and pulled him close, kissing him hard and plentifully, not caring as he soaked both of their faces in his tears. He couldn’t imagine being happier. He’d never allowed himself to think he’d ever be this happy. 

“You like it?” Sebastian asked when Stefano allowed him to breathe. 

“I adore it,” Stefano corrected, “I adore you.”

Sebastian laughed and the rumble of his voice and the bristles of his beard tickled Stefano’s lips. “I love you too.”


End file.
